How I Spent my Holiday

 

I spent it clearing the rubbish out of my life. 

As we know this is one of the classical magical acts, and one I will freely admit to not doing often enough. I am already feeling the benefits in terms of a renewed focus and the universe is beckoning me onto the next step.

Years ago my Goddess mother (you didn't think I made this shit up myself did you) told me that witches hold mirrors up to people and give them the opportunity to correct karma. If they take it, all well and good but they have to take the consequences if they don't. 

This is a mission from the universe or the divine and of course means that people either being ridiculous or in ridiculous circumstances get drawn into our orbit before they get the results of their own actions. Shame.

The very first tarot deck I bought was the ancient Italian tarot - I bought it because I liked it but at the time couldn't read with it and gave it away. I found one at a price I was prepared to pay and am bonding with it old school, by sleeping with it under my pillow.

When the pupil is ready the teacher will appear or disappear.

Oh, and my choice of Birmingham's dancing bin men is surely obvious. The ones in Wolverhampton are a pale imitation.

It is too safe only to put music videos up on your blog. Here is some real divine inspiration:

The Lady will Provide

...and that is one of the ways the witch knows things are moving, when things inexplicably start falling into place. For example in the Acocks Green area of the city (the accent is on the long A, not the O, by the way) today, I not only found the box set of a TV series I've been looking for for ages, but also found my manager (pictured) staring at me in a charity shop window! Of course I had to buy it (the woman closed the zip saying he wouldn't be able to speak, but I closed it again, saying that silence is required) & then some pins from Wilko for the next part. This really is a gift from the universe, a case of more opportunities coming along if you make use if them.

Incidentally, apart from the inane grin & idiotic expression, I hadn't realised how like Zippy my manager is in personality, making it all about her & wanting to be friends, while ignoring other people's views & actual misconduct completely:

'...Zippy claims to be the best at whatever is being discussed, and always claims to be right. He loves to eat sweets, sing songs and tell his favourite jokes, and always has to be the centre of attention. For example, the other characters might be having a discussion, when Zippy would shout: "But I don't want to talk, I want to sing! I'm very good at singing! [starts singing] I'm a little teapot short and stout, here's my handle and here's my spout..."

'Due to his frequently loud behaviour and silly voice getting him into all sorts of trouble, other characters in Rainbow occasionally zip his mouth shut, rendering him unable to talk. On at least one occasion he unzips himself, although he appears unable to do so on most occasions.' (Source

My problem with responsibility

I have been absent from here for some time. One of the reasons for that is that I periodically think to myself 'I must write a blog post', and when I think that I know that writing a post because I feel beholden to this blog in some way is the wrong reason to do it.

I remain in the process of finding a permanent home, and in true witch style, if you should wish to find me you only have to follow the trail of bruised and bloodied estate agents to find me. Honestly, these people actively try to stop themselves doing their own job. I seem finally to have found an estate agent who is up to my standards of sensibleness and reliability. If I email her a question she replies either the same day with the information I require or to say she is finding it out. In fact, she's almost come on side (don't worry, the Hound hasn't forgotten that estate agents are in the employ of the vendor, although you wouldn't think that by the one I had). I was even impressed to find that although they've got a very swanky address in the Jewellery Quarter, they seem to be renting an office in a Georgian building which is at best tatty. Doing their job, instead of 'kippers and curtains'.

My thoughts have mostly been turning to the enduring problem I have with that word 'responsibility'. The heavy emphasis placed on this in the witchcraft community almost implies at times that taking responsibility for a situation means anything that goes wrong is always your own fault. Sometimes it is, of course, and the test of that is a frank evaluation of whether you've actually done everything you can to remedy a situation. There is another team in my workplace which has been having a very hard time, for example. I have limited sympathy for them because when you asked whether they have brought collective grievances, and so on, the answer is of course no. A major part of the problem is clearly themselves.

A very different situation is where someone is misusing power over you. In that situation, although the witch must always attempt to make of the situation what she wills, it is possible that your efforts will come to nothing. Apart from the fact that it is usually in that situation, where your back is to the wall, that magic is most spectacularly effective, ones ability to take responsibility for a situation can be compromised by somebody else's actions. This is seen most simply in a lot of bullying behaviours, which is why they are so tortuous for the target. I will still not allow that word that begins with a v to pass my lips.

And this is nicely where the witch comes in, but not in the way you may be expecting. As witches our bread and butter is taking a situation and making something different of it. This is the real fear which witchcraft will always put into those around us. People don't think that we should be able to create independently. Certainly for the Abrahamic traditions which mainly surround us at this end of Europe, creation is a function reserved to God. Witchcraft, by blurring the rigid distinction between what is divine and what is human, permanently puts the mockers on being told that we can't do something.

That said, one of the phrases I do love in the Christian tradition is 'the sins crying to heaven for vengeance'. There are only four of them, they can be found in the Bible. It is this idea of an act so bad it calls for its immediate divine retribution. I'm going to say something quite radical here – I would love to meet a real Christian. I have a feeling that I would get on with a real Christian extremely well, although they would consider me damned. That simple embodiment of divinity in the world is almost exactly what we witches do, with a few different emphases. They would ask God for vengeance on an injustice – we would damn well create that vengeance. It's what we do best, although as everything else it has a come back for the witch, in that once you've dealt with a particular situation, you seem to attract that situation again. Nature knows you can deal with this particular set of circumstances so those circumstances get sent to you over and over again.

And it should come as no surprise to the witch. It has come as no surprise to me that while I have found one estate agent I'm impressed with and my purchase of an absurdly cheap apartment is going through remarkably easily – that is just the hedge looking after the witch. It's one of the things that happens when you bow deeply to the universe: it bows back (I have borrowed this phrase from Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido). For the witch, what she needs will literally fall into her lap at the exact right moment. If it doesn't, give something away. Nature abhors a vacuum and will not be outdone in generosity.

But the real responsibility is to know that in the same time frame I will be cursed with an absolutely idiotic letting agent. I'll assume if you're reading this you're a clever person, but unfortunately it is the case that the majority of the world's population don't learn. They keep on ignoring the blatantly obvious and ending up paying the price. It's just another case of moaning but not doing anything to make a change. I'll also assume if you're reading this, you will understand that I am the warning. You don't need to know that I attempt to be both mercy and severity at once to understand that as a human being you should treat me right. I don't expect to be given special treatment, you don't have to know I'm a witch, you just have to do the right thing. This agent took a reference from my employer, which asked amongst other things, about my attitude to other people's property. They were asking the wrong question. They should have asked what kind of enemy I would make. It's not difficult, they only had to mend the gutter. When they didn't, I also made it plain they only had to write me a cheque to compensate me for the damage. When they didn't they made the mistake of trying to intimidate me out of taking legal action. They should really have asked what I am like when the gloves are off, because that's when it gets painful, and it will be painful because they have invited the universe to cause them pain by not treating the witch right.

As usual the hedge has bent over backwards to take care of me, not least because I'm sitting here writing this virtually on top of the river which is the reason for the city. Advertisements have appeared in Birmingham's buses for a solicitors firm which specialises in tenancy problems, and I have put the problem in their hands. They are no win no fee, so I stand not to lose anything, whatever happens. The lettings agency have invited the hedge to give them trouble. It will end costing them much more money (and what's the betting they'll be really pissed off when I turn down monetary offers associated with gagging clauses?), and the negative publicity will cause their business to be dissolved again. I notice a business of the same name was dissolved in 2010. I'm a witch and an INFJ: don't piss me off because I will find out your stuff. And here's what they will do next: they will put up the rent when my assured shorthold tenancy comes to an end. Not a problem – grist to my mill, that is. In something like two months' time I will be all set up in the city centre. And all of this will come out in court. Because they wouldn't take responsibility, this is. They've attracted to themselves someone who will and will take them to school.

Incidentally, I must post the result of another post I've made a little while back, about having a problem with someone at work. I eventually withdrew my complaint, but what I didn't know was that while I sent mine in, another one went in as well. He applied for a promotion, and didn't get it, to his great chagrin. Shame. Shouldn't be an idiot. It's just some people need a firm lesson a right action. And there's no guarantee they'll get the lesson.

My difficulty writin' about city witchin'

You wouldn't believe the difficulty I'm having with this post: this is about the fifth attempt I've made. I want to write a post about how I see being a witch in the city is not a problem: I want to contrast that with the naff green/country/garden/'Merrie England' approach you often find in the literature. I'm trying to write a sensible piece, but it keeps becoming a bitch fest about how these people live in a dream world, denying their own urban milieu, & how the whole pretence of village witch/wise woman/midwife is a load of twaddle. Oh look, there I go again. I could just rip my own tongue out.
I want to write a piece about the specific nature of witchcraft & magic in the city. I want to write about the freedom that civilisation gives us to pursue magic, by freedom from wondering where the next meal's coming from. I want to write about how cities draw all sorts of things to themselves, thus providing the witch with a richness of resource unparalleled in the country. I want to ride about the need for authenticit for the witch, when in reality the majority of modern witches live in urban areas. I want to write about how the sociological division between gemeinde and gesellschaft as modes of community is a narrative that predisposes toward country as community that negates the positive aspects of city living. I want to write about how the particular nature of city community can help towards magic, since it gives a certain anonymity, while also providing a 'tribe' for the witch. I want to write about the nature of city energy: there's a wealth of 'stuff', history, entities & experiences, to draw on. I want to write about the greater potential to recharge in the city: I personally often do it from the mass of humanity in the Bull Ring market, with no danger of vampirising one individual. I want to write about the opportunities for meeting all sorts of magical & 'spiritual' practitioners that the city affords. I want to talk about the ongoing development of magical modes & methods. I want to talk about the need to be honest about how we make things up, rather than try to make out a fiction is true & stick rigidly to it. I wanted to write about how the institution of the city is ancient enough that humans can hardly be said not to thrive there, indeed we have adapted to such an extent that it is the natural environment for many of us.
I wanted to write about all these things & couldn't find the way of expressing them. But it seems that writing about this problem has solved it!
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How to Lose the Power

Illustration: someecards.com
It's a funny thing. We witches come to the power of magic in ways that are frequently incredibly traumatic. Even if initiations have been ritual ones they are frequently 'confirmed' afterwards by real life events, or the other way round. The only thing that can be said with certainty about these experiences is that they will be painful. It's a magic thing - you have to go the extremes of human experience to come back able to work with all the threads of life in a new way.
Given that, it is astounding that some witches (can you hear the tone of voice in which I say *some* *witches*?) seem determined to give their hard-won power away. Or at least their actions would indicate so. So here is a down & dirty guide to stopping yourself from being a witch.
Lying. That's the big one. Virtually the whole of magic depends on things being so because I say they are so. My work as a witch is therefore dependent on me developing my will over the years to the point where it is like a knife, carving its way through reality. There's a funny thing about lying - people do sometimes consciously set out to tell a lie when it is convenient - that isn't such a problem magically - but people have the strange knack of persuading themselves the lie is true as they say it. This is another non-witch thing of seeing oneself as completely good & incapable of sin - a relic of the dualistic Christian worldview that we are all influenced by. If I am caught out in something & cover it up with a lie, I am actively destroying my own will to make things as I say they are. I am trying to do two completely non-relatable things at once.
Telling lies also compromises the freedom I must give to others to do their own will. It means I am not allowing them the space to enact their own will, withholding the information necessary to determine that one is not in conflict with others' true paths: actually lying cripples the will of both lier & liee. It is abusive. As a magical person my aim is clearly to get things right the first time. A certain discernment & clarity of thought is therefore desirable in anyone seeking magic. This skill of discernment will also allow me to pick up on others' lies as they happen.
A lie is the ultimate disrespect to another person, for it also calls into question that person's magical integrity. For example, I'm a c*nt. I make no bones about this. None. If you have known me for some time & seen me in action magically, you'd better believe it. If you then take the piss, you are not believing in the magic at all. Not yours. Not mine. Not anyone's. It's holding up a big sign asking to lose magical power completely, since you plainly don't believe it exists.
There is the slightest of differences between the act of lying & the actual misuse of power; in fact lying is the main weapon to it. The misuse of power is often the attitude to ourselves & others that underlies an untruthful approach to life. This attitude can be anything from explicit manipulation to just not being bothered.
The antidote to all this is a grounded witchcraft. This begins, as all magical paths do, with the right love of self leading to the pursuit of right relationship between self & everything else. In fact this right relationship is virtually the whole of the magical pursuit, & underlies all forms of magic.
So what do we do when we find a witch who is almost determined to give away his magic power? It is difficult to set down principles, but I think a witch who is set on the path of deceit, self-deception & wrong relationship should be avoided as a general principle. You can see it coming with these people - first they feel out of control or trapped, then they try to exert control. Crowley defined 'black' magic as the resistance to & refusal to change. The magician on the path of self-destruction will do almost anything to maintain their status quo. The sign of a magician who is avoiding this trap is that he will go with the challenges life sends him, & take them as opportunities to progress his magical life. If the person is dear to you, you may wish to speak to them. Incidentally, the way to avoid this trap oneself is a full & frank account to yourself of what is actually happening in your life. 'Know thyself' is one of the watchwords of the magical path & this danger is the reason why. Ultimately, sadly, the magical person in pursuit of self-destruction will have to be avoided, to avoid the danger of being dragged down the same road.
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Hidden City: Curzon Street Station & Cat

To Curzon Street Station today, on one of the incredibly rare occasions when it is open to the public. It is actually well-known as a landmark, seen from the train as you approach from the Coventry side of the city, a rare glimpse of loveliness for years & years among the abomination of desolation that Eastside used to be. It was Birmingham's original railway station, opened in 1838, & remained so until New Street opened, so that the posh people coming for the attractions of New Street didn't have to see the slums of Park Street. It was designed by John Hardwicke, who also designed the now-demolished Euston arch in London, & is a seriously sexy building. I have been gagging to get a glimpse of the inside for literally decades.
This is a blog primarily about witchcraft, so it can only be expected that my slant on things is often going to be somewhat...unusual. I won't hold back, therefore, from going straight into the weird shit about Birmingham's railway stations. There is an irony about the Victorians moving the main station to New Street. I will grant you that the Park Street area of the city can be a real challenge, in energy terms, as it were. Even the slightest hint of psychic ability allows one to pick up on the resonances of the teeming slum that that side of the city once was. Personally I don't feel this to be related to the grave yard, I feel it is related to the long history of chaotic living & conflict that that area would have known. What you *see* therefore as you come into the city, is almost a battle ground. For a psychic, the irony is that the atmosphere of what is now called Eastside is not half as bad as that of New Street Station. I feel one of the reasons people love to hate Birmingham is what they land up in at New Street is a literal cesspit. Even cowans pick this up: New Street is notorious both for suicides & its hauntings (I have resisted writing an actual spirit of place post about New Street, but see for example http://blogs.sundaymercury.net/haunted/2008/12/ghost-trains-and-haunted-railw.html and http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/birmingham-new-street-station-haunting-179968).
Anyway the result of opening Curzon Street station for an exhibition of pictures of normally-unseen places in the city (ten till three daily, this week only) was a huge crowd of people with cameras. Obviously I'm not the only one who's been gagging to get in there for years. The actual building is all I was hoping it would be, in fact better. It is a seriously sexy building, whose predominating atmosphere is of dignity & solidity. It also isn't half as wrecked inside as I thought it would be: it is certainly in better nick than Moseley Road Baths, also 'looked after' by the council.
One of the reasons people were so snap-happy was that, while the pictures actually featured in some supplements in the Birmingham Post - & may therefore have been missed - the places were in reality a mixture of places you have *some* hope of seeing (such as Perrott's Folly) & places that you actually have no realistic hope of seeing in the near future or ever. These would include the inside of the Grand Hotel (been there, actually I've been asked politely to leave the bar, but it doesn't look like that's reopening any time soon), New Street Station signal box, the famous underground telephone exchange, the ballroom (didn't know about that) at Aston fire station, Steelhouse Lane custody suite (no, I have *never* been there), & the actual Big Brum bells (in the tower of the council house). And all this in a gorgeous building that is *almost* never open to the public. There are a few more sights that I have passively viewed on urban exploration sites, such as the bank on Broad Street - it's been done, it's been done to death. It's open sometimes for things, anyway, & looks...well, the way you'd expect a bank to look behind the scenes. The majority of these places I personally have at least seen pictures of, so I think the main point of the exhibition is to get into the station in person. In fact if you missed them the pictures are on the website related to this exhibition: http://www.hidden-spaces.co.uk/ .
Now you wouldn't know it was me if I didn't somehow turn the sanest of subjects weird, so I have to bring in the Curzon Street cat, surely a hero of this story. I was hoping to meet the subject of such a genuinely old magical practice, but he or she didn't make an appearance & anyway I feel probably would be a terminally pissed off dead cat. Don't try this at home, kids: this is a genuinely old magical practice that you won't find in Silver Ravenwolf or Scott Cunningham. It appears here as an antidote to the naffness of much modern paganism (I was going to write a whole post about the said naffness, timed carefully to coincide with the solstice junket to Stonehenge, but felt I would come across as snarky even by my standards. & rather post about something that interests *me*) & as a reminder that magic, indeed life itself, comes down to blood & bone. Our encounter with that life is what enables us to turn one thing into another.
'Birmingham's most bizarre Victorian relic is on track for a purr-fect journey to immortality.
'A mummified cat – buried alive under the floorboards of Birmingham's Curzon Street train station in 1838 – could have pride of place in the new station to be built in the city as part of the controversial HS2 high-speed rail network.
'The Birmingham terminus – initially linking to London but later to other major cities – will be on the site of the old station.
'And the cat and other curios from Curzon Street could be included in a sale by Birmingham City Council, which owns the site, to the company behind HS2.
'It is believed that the cat was originally placed in the station as part of a gruesome Victorian tradition to bring the building, and its future staff, good luck.
'The custom required a live cat to be placed under the last floorboard, or the final brick in a wall.
'The cat would naturally die, either from lack of oxygen, starvation or thirst – or all three – so the 'lucky omen' was far from lucky for the victim.
'The standard of workmanship in the Victorian era was so high that the floorboard void, or the bricked-in cavity, was airtight.
'So instead of decaying, the corpse mummified.
'The feline remains – and other artefacts – were unearthed by builders carrying out major construction work on Curzon Street Station in the 1980s.
'It was decided to retain the curios and place them in glass-fronted display cabinets set into the walls of the building.
'The mummified cat was a quirky – but little-known – attraction at the former station when it served as offices for several training organisations.
'Birmingham City Council has owned the freehold of Curzon Street station since 1980 and it has been unoccupied since 2001, although a few art exhibitions have been staged there in between.
'The cat, which never appears to have been given a name, was removed for safekeeping from Curzon Street by the city council and it is now in safe storage.' (http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/curzon-street-cat-rise-up-4703773)
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Why I Like Silver Ravenwolf

I'm reading one of Silver's books in bed. An innocuous pastime, you would think, but strangely nobody ever thinks I'm being serious when I say I like her writing - I don't really even have a problem with her personally, apart from the relentless exhausting positivity of her earlier books, which seems to be toned down a bit in the one I'm reading now.

She is also probably one of the Wiccan authors who gets the most bashing, both on the internet & when her name is mentioned at any witch gathering. To me the reason for her getting such a bashing is self-explanatory, & is not the obvious one, so I want to give my own take on some of the things I have heard or read about her.

She is often accused of Christian-bashing. True she says some very negative things about the Christian religion, some of them probably not as well judged as others. There's a passage in Teen Witch where she talks about something along the lines of obedience to a slave god. She may be overstating the case to make a point, also I don't know her own background, whether she has had bad experiences with the Christians, but given that Wicca & Witchcraft have developed in conscious opposition to the surrounding Christian milieu, I would call that a fairly accurate statement of the difference between us & monotheists. I think also some of the things she says are clearly aimed - misguidedly or not - at young people who in the nature of the case feel misunderstood & are seeking to define their adult personality is contrast to their parents & the world they've been brought up in.

One of the most criticised passages in Teen Witch - where she tells the teen witch that parents may not understand but Silver does, & if they don't understand, to explain witchcraft to them as the worship of angels - is to me a wildly misjudged attempt to deal with a difficult problem. Alternative religions are always misunderstood, but a better way of telling people would be to say that the person is interested in a religion whose name is witchcraft, which is a 20th century creation, & suggest reputable sources of information. Silver has, to me, clearly tried to help the troubled teen & gone badly wrong, in terms of the repute of the religion. Interestingly she speaks in a slightly different vein about this subject in the one I'm reading now (Solitary Witch), aimed clearly at young people but not as obviously as Teen Witch, in the context of people having difficulty dealing with a loved pet dying. Her tone in this book 'sells' the subject better, & would hopefully make it plain to a parent finding this book under the bed, that our religion has ways of dealing with death & dying aimed at being helpful while being different to those around us. I also find it interesting that she plumps for angels, the immediate source for this in a magical context, of course, is the grimoire tradition, where they also served at times as a camouflage for the magician!

As a magical person I feel the need to respect other people's magic. This is the point. The whole point. There is almost no other point, because this is the point of the willed life, that your own magic, rightly understood, will lead to the development & distinction of the self, & will not clash with other people's wills, rightly understood. If somebody wants to do witchcraft a la Martha Stewart, if this is their will, up to the point it clashes with other people, my will is not to have a problem with that.

Similarly, her publisher (we know who I mean) tends to publish books aimed at either beginners or a mass market. Leave the poor woman alone, already, she's given so many people a foot up into the witching!

My main criticism of her is this: she plainly has not (or had not, the tone of her books has changed slightly over the years) taken on board the concept of polarity. Broomstick, Cauldron, & Teen Witch are exhausting, one-dimensional feasts of obsessive positivity, trying to banish any action that may or may not be construed as negative, or even the emotions that may lead to that. And *this* is the reason she gets the bashing: if you concentrate solely on one end of a polarity, you attract what is at the other end. I suppose I would reluctantly accept that I am a 'dark pagan' myself. Reluctantly because it's making the same mistake the other way if you concentrate only one side. The proprietress of a magical shop I only go in occasionally tried to get me interested in gothy vampire tarot decks, & I'm not interested, because for me the darkness is the stuff we don't talk about easily, which when really encountered truly allows you out into the light. Similarly my shadow side picks up snails off the pavement after it's rained, to stop them being trodden on.

Those who would only focus on the light invite their darkness, & vice versa. Similarly fluffy bashing invites you to be surrounded by militant white lighters & fluff bunnies at every opportunity. Would you really want that?

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More thoughts on the Library of Birmingham

I've now been into the library a number of times & actually used it so am in more of a position to assess its quality as a library.

There is a very clear difference between this one & the previous one, illustrated by the two pictures I've chosen. One shows the secret garden on the top but one floor. I went up there after sunset yesterday evening. It was exhilarating being up there in the dark during rush hour with the traffic out of the city like ribbons of light way below. I had this sudden strange urge to ask the security guard for sex & I assume it has that effect on other people because of the large signs warning about CCTV.

The other picture shows the space under the old library's inverted ziggurat as it was originally meant to be. And this is the difference: the old library was a statement in architecture & shape, sacrificing function to form. The present library is designed for its users.

I have a few qualms about its likely effect on its staff. Despite the large sign at reception stressing how important welfare of the staff has been, my impression is that the staff are very exposed to the all-critical eye of the public. There are walls of glass into offices & meeting rooms: the sense of continual scrutiny must be extraordinary.

In terms of using the library it doesn't have the strange 'underground' feeling of the old one - caused by little natural light & few windows. It's actually the other way around - it's spacious to the other extreme! Once you get your head round where the subjects are thing - with the *huge* exception I will mention below are actually easier to find now. There are a variety of places & things to sit on on every level.

The only major criticism I have of the library as a building is I think mistakes have been made in some of the surfaces used. I mean in terms of usability: the fashion in public spaces is away from carpets, but they would make it much less noisy than it is. Also I mean in durability: some of the floors & walls are looking rather scuffed, weeks after library's opening. And, darlings, black shows dust. If you're going to have empty black shelves high up you have to organise the dusting of them or your new library looks very tatty.

My other criticism isn't really of the Library of Birmingham as such but a criticism of the management of the central library for the past forty years. The old central library had two catalogues running at once, one a card index, the other electronic. There was an overlap but the card index seems to have been what was taken from the previous library in the 1970s, & a single catalogue was never created. This is something that should have been remedied when an electronic catalogue was created. Similarly the works that were done to move to the new library such as rationalising, preserving & cataloguing the collection, all seem to me tasks that *should* be the day to day work of a library. The impression that the bread & butter work of maintaining the collection has been neglected is irresistible. I understand that in the public sector there are no doubt financial constraints to taking on the personnel in Britain's second-busiest public library, & that I have the impression that the excellent staff's  customer service may have been prioritised at the expense of behind-the-scenes work.

It was a relief to notice the complete absence of card indexes in the new library. I therefore assumed that there is now a single catalogue. I therefore thought that I'd wander through the catalogue at home to see what I could read on a visit today. I found the location of a children's book that I've been wanting to revisit for some time: I wish I'd pinched more than one copy from school all those years ago: I could sell them for £30 a time on ebay now.

Then a terrible thing happened. I've been wanting to read Philip Hesleton's biography of Gerald Gardner & I wondered if they'd bought it, so I just did a keyword search for Gerald Gardner. Nothing. In. The. Whole. Of. Birmingham. I thought that must be wrong, they used to have a first edition of Witchcraft Today, so I did an author search for Gerald Gardner. Nothing. A title search produced nothing. An awful fear came over me. So I searched for the (first edition) Witch Cult in Western Europe. Nothing. Had they got rid of them?

I got my answer today: the stack is not yet fully catalogued or accessible at all. This to me is a real problem, & here's why. Libraries have difficulty making magic books stay on the shelf, not because they fly around but because magical people are dodgy people & steal books. For this reason the best stuff in that library has always been in the stack, as far as I'm concerned. I don't object at all to either presenting extra identification  even to sit in the reference library with a book, or have to sit right under the eye of the staff, if this is what it takes to keep expensive magical books in the library rather than nicked by some muppet.

What is good is that recataloguing will create a catalogue of what they've actually got, since the card catalogue was not altered to reflect what was missing over the years. However as I say this should have been done well before now, because the sum result is that the majority of the library's stock, & much of what is of interest to me personally, is inaccessible still. And that, for whatever reasons it's happened, isn't a lot of use, is it?

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Spirit of place: Moseley so-called 'village'

In my first post about the River Rea I mentioned my distaste for referring to a random area of Britain's second city as a village. Today I intended to go to King's Norton & follow the Rea's route out away from the city. Unfortunately on the bus towards Cotteridge I was going through my Marseille tarot cards (I'm going to learn to read those bad boys if it kills me) & when I next looked up the bus was approaching King's Heath. So I got off, did the charity shops in King's Heath then got on the 50 to Moseley.
Let's get the good things about Moseley out of the way before I begin my bitch-fest: it is home to some of Birmingham's most gorgeous & endangered buildings, such as the baths & the former art school. The latter is now in the private hands of an Islamic educational charity who do their best to maintain the fabric of their listed building but don't have the available resources for fancy restorations. Still they are doing the right thing by the building by keeping the water out & 'holding' the fabric, which is more than can be said for the council-managed baths.
Moseley is the most ridiculous example of the city's 'villages': King's Norton at least has its Green, but Moseley is just a dive. I have never understood why such a dump attracts rich earth mother types who think living in Moseley is wonderful. Perhaps it's the boho thing; while it certainly has an arty crowd it also has lots of homeless hostels, & just generally seems to attract the homeless, clueless, brainless, & just plain feckless. I popped into the Zen shop to look at the tarot cards: I didn't buy anything and rarely ever would because the only thing I would ever buy there is the hoodoo stuff they sell; it is literally impossible to buy a candle in the shape of a penis elsewhere locally. Unfortunately they've gone into selling legal highs: the fact they are legal is a loophole, it does not mean they are safe. The upshot is half the population of Moseley are trying to maintain its posh image & the other half are off their heads. I'm sure there's also some crossover in the middle, but I feel the neighbourhood may be going even more downhill from the dump it already is, because an area- rather than person-specific injunction has been taken out to curb drinking & antisocial behaviour in Moseley 'village'.
This is how West Midlands Police's website reports the injunction:
Priorities and Issues
Your neighbourhood team are currently working with the community and partners to address the following:
S222 injunction in Moseley village.
A long term problem in Moseley village and the surrounding roads has been street drinking and associated problems such as begging. A Section 222 Injunction was granted which covers a defined area in the village until June 2013. A map is displayed throughout the village with details of both the defined area and restrictions on certain types of behaviour.
Feedback
S222 injunction in Moseley village.: There continues to be positive feedback from both community members, business owners and partners alike. We are actively pursuing at this time banning orders against a prolific individual regarding begging. A court case is impending regarding a previously prolific street drinker whom has been recently arrested for being in the village area thereby breaching his current ban. It is our joint intention with our partners to apply to extend the s222 injunction for a further year.
Source: http://m.west-midlands.police.uk/np/birminghameast/nh.asp?ID=2
The illustration is of the notices which have been posted in the injunction area, & which shows what you can expect on a normal night in Moseley: riotous drinking, threatening begging, genital waving, & public sex. Village? I think not.
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